Business Travel Tips

In the effort to cash in on more lucrative routes, Delta Air Lines keeps cutting domestic flights and adding service overseas. It has just started the route between New York’s JFK (JFK) and Lyon’s Saint-Exupery International Airport (LYS), France.

This international adding, is the only nonstop flight between the United States and Lyon.

The service will operate five times a week, with the following schedule:
- departure from New York at 4:30pm, arrival in Lyon at 7:05am the following day;
- departure from Lyon at 9:30am, arrival in New York at 12:15pm.

Thanks to its joint venture with Air France, Delta offers its passengers the possibility to connect to 40 European destinations via Lyon.

Continental announced some changes to its OnePass program.
These are the changes that Continental says will be taking effect in the next 30 days:

1. New instant ticketing requirement for continental.com and phone bookings.
Effective August 17, 2008, all customers booking travel at continental.com or over the phone with Continental Reservations will be required to purchase tickets at the time they make their reservations. In these cases, we will allow the flexibility to make changes to reservations within 24 hours without incurring change fees.

This includes canceling your reservation and requesting a refund to the original form of payment. For the majority of you who are already accustomed to instant ticketing, our new 24-hour window for fee-waived changes and refunds will be an improvement. This policy will also include OnePass Reward Travel. Customers redeeming OnePass rewards will be given a three-day ticketing time limit if there are not enough miles in their OnePass account, allowing time for mileage transfer requests or to purchase miles through the Mileage Purchase Option. Here are the additional terms and conditions:
a) The 24-hour timeframe is defined as the 24-hour period starting at the time the reservation is completed.
b) There are no exceptions to this policy for OnePass Elite members.
c) Tickets exempt from this policy include group tickets and tickets purchased using (more…)

Delta Air Lines is displaying ads on boarding passes for flights to all its domestic destinations. The ads as well as coupons and other information about the destination city will be displayed only on paper passes for travelers who check in online — at www.delta.com.

However when checking in online, customers who don’t want ads have the option to skip the offers and print passes without them.

Ads on paper passes is another option for airlines to look for new sources of revenue in the effort to cope with skyrocketing jet fuel prices.
Sojern Inc, the Omaha-based startup which sells this ads, says it will not annoy passengers, because the ads load quickly on home computers and they have the option to skip the offers.

The other big airlines are expected to follow Delta’s move, as each of them — Delta, Continental, Northwest, United, US Airways and American – owns a small share of Sojern Inc. (source)

There was a time when airlines used to give stranded passengers hotel and meals vouchers if a flight was canceled or delayed as a result of airline’s problem. Unfortunately, that time is gone, now it seems vouchers are a thing of the past.
As a consequence of that, sleeping at an airport overnight has become a lot more common lately even for business travelers.

(photo by C+H – CC license)

The International Herald Tribune, quoting seasoned travelers, suggests passengers forced to spend a night at an airport, to buy a snack and water before airport shops close, bring something soft to lie down on or rest your head against and keep hotel phone numbers handy.

The newspaper reports also about the Mini Motel, a $39.95 sleeping-at-airport kit, including one-person tent complete with air mattress, pillow, reading light, and alarm clock, created by a business traveler who experienced an unscheduled overnight stay at an airport.

There is also a Guide to Sleeping in Airports (www.sleepinginairports.com), which lists the best and worst airports to spend the night in. According this guide, the airport offering the best service for overnight guests is Singapore Changi Airport. It has dimly lighted napping areas, where comfortable leather chairs have leg rests and headrests.

Placing advertising on the baggage carousels could be one of the options that airports consider to boost non-airline revenue.

usatoday.com reports Dallas/Fort Worth airport will start running ads on its baggage carousels in August or September.

The airport says there are 30 carousels that can support ads, with two ads per carousel. Ads are printed in full color on an adhesive material and applied to the surface of the conveyor belt.

Tracy Zwahlen of DoubleTake Marketing, the firm which has developed the technology enabling airports to place advertising on the baggage carousel, says it provides advertisers a captive audience of travelers who wait 15-plus minutes for their luggage to arrive.